Nightmares on Wax weren't a duo were they? Thought it was just George 'EASE' Evelyn

It was a duo of Evelyn and Kevin Harper for their first singles and first (and best, IMO) album. But I forgot Harper wasn't on the following records anymore (except for the "Dredd Overboard" single), so I guess it's a matter of opinion whether they should be in this poll.

Considered LFO but that one guy left so nah.

They were a duo for their 90s recording career, though. You shouldn't let post-90s stuff affect your judgement here.

Btw, those of you who know Alter Ego only for "Rocker", I would strongly recommend checking out their 1996 album Decoding the Hacker Myth (despite its awful title). It's a lovely piece of euphoric, elastic synth lines married to funky breaks, kinda like µ-ziq without the drill'n'bass wankery. Any fan of mid-90s Warp would probably like it.

Swayzak hasn't been mentioned either. Seeing them live in '98 was a real moment for me. I'd seen creativity with Djing before but two guys and some boxes creating a dubby minimal groove in a smallish club inspired me.

i mean it is literally impossible to talk about house and techno in a broad context w/o evaluating the impact of those guys, nobody else on the list can claim that (you could easily sub in any number of hardcore and bleep artists for 4 hero and lfo and drexciya is non pareil but also sort of in their own world)

TBH Basic Channel's specific appeal has been kinda run down a bit by the emergence of the entire genre of "hardwax techno" as a permanent side-serve to detroit.

But I get your point and think this poll is theirs to lose (esp. if one includes Main Street Records and Rhythm & Sound).

versus 4 Hero who are less obviously the sole ancestors of the styles and sub-styles they fostered, but maybe fill a "patient zero" style role - it's likely that darkside hardcore, artcore, atmospheric/jazzy d&b and broken beat would have happened without them but nonetheless everything that actually happened in each of those moments can be traced back to their pivotal role.

yeah but that's just arguing that 4 hero sparked a fad several times in a row, mr kirks nightmare was the anthem and maybe it was even the one that sparked the trend but it was hardly the only stab anybody had taken at darkcore or whatever you want to call it

similarly i'd say guy called gerald re: their ambient leanings etc

also you know i love then most for their jacobs optical stairway project

come on it's obviously basic channel, these guys cast a bigger shadow over techno than anybody since derrick may and mr fingers

The poll is about the "best", not the "most influential" though. The BC stuff that I've heard is okay, but there are other 90s minimalists (Emmanuel Top, Burger & Ink, Khan & Walker, Plastikman, etc) I like more.

One thing I've always wondered about Basic Channel: were many people actually into their tracks at the time they came out? Because I can't remember hearing anything by them, or about them, until the late 90s, and even then it was Rhythm & Sound that I first heard. By the time I got to hear the actual BC stuff, I'd already been listening to other artists influenced by them, like Monolake, who I thought did the same thing better. So that's why I've never been that impressed by them.

I dunno if that's supposed to prove it, if you look at the Discogs entry for Air Liquide, for example, they appeared on about the same amount of mixes in the 1990s, and you can hardly say they had a huge impact even then:

I just wanted to say, I'm not denying Basic Channel were influential from the turn of the millennium onwards, when the German minimal techno scene became popular, it's just that I don't remember them being very infuential before that. In my recollection, the minimal scene in the 90s was less about dubby, "deep" tracks and more about harsh, dry tunes, like Emmanuel Top or Richie Hawtin or Panasonic, or German Schranz, or what was known as "monotrack" here in Finland. But of course it might've been different elsewhere in the world.

My introduction to Basic Channel, Chain Reaction, Maurizio etc. was with their feature in The Wire which I think was Aug '96. It was at that point I saw them as superior in terms of sound design to a lot of German and European techno that preceded that time. They release the iconic metal boxed CDs around that time also I think. I remember people who I admired like Carl Craig were bigging them up in interviews. This was obviously a few years after they had released the first 12"s.

the very first promo pile that arrived @ ireallylovemusic hq happened to be the back catalogue of eat static.while the odd track was fun for 10 minutes, have to admit i never got to the end of an album.same goes for the secret knowledge album to be honest .. /

basic channel records were massive on the underground when they came out, those 12"s had a huge mystique iirc in terms of sound design and even the pressings themselves. dave clarke would routinely award them five dancing men in his Mixmag Update reviews.